“I Have Enough Friends to be Yelp-Elite”

Here in los EEUU, the hustle never stops. Even with one’s personal life. Our lives are seemingly determined by our follower count and our ability to turn our social circle into an income stream with the pressure to make six figures doing “little at all”. There’s making TikToks and Instagram reels, online coaching, coding for only “2 hours per day!”, multi-level marketing (pyramid schemes!), AI-boostered digital content selling—I see it all; I get the ads. I recently heard a certain gentleman in a neighboring booth at a local Korean restaurant bragging on what could only be a first date about how he had “enough friends to be Yelp-Elite”. Yelp-Elite? Que putas?! What kind of world are we living in? The answer, friends, is elementary school.

            I grow more and more weary of the American Dream every day. What once was my Norwegian ancestors navigating the Atlantic to the friendly shores of Stoughton, Wisconsin to work at flour mills and make a better life for their families has now become the never-ending either draw to become a content creator or guilt for not becoming one. I, I guess, fall into the latter category. My Estaunidense peers chase promises of easy money and feel discouraged when nothing comes to pass. They tie their self-worth to likes, follows, comments, and views. They want to become an Amazon affiliate and in the same breath fall prey to an Amazon affiliate link—an endless stream of fast-fashion and fast-everything. Bank accounts emptied. Voids in souls. America isn’t nearly as happy as its contemporaries in Europe—why? This very thing. We can’t stop the hustle. We can’t stop running. We dig ourselves a hole that might be too deep to come out of.

            I once wanted to be a content creator. I once wanted a million followers on Instagram—or a thousand. Sometimes I still do. It would drive more traffic to my blog—my passion. Maybe it would get me some freelance work—security. But it could not give me the one thing we all seek—joy. Joy comes from acceptance. And I guess, in my own way, I have accepted my fate. I don’t want to make Instagram reels. I rage against short-form content. I don’t want to use AI to build me a digital workbook on travel tips which I can sell to my poor, tired 200 followers. I want only one thing—to write and to be heard. Do I need Instagram for that? Do I need the rigamorroll?

            I’m sure you are sensing my rhetorical questions.

            We all as humans want what’s instant. It is why I spent the past six months eating hot pockets. The sound of my keys hitting the ceramic key-bowl on my kitchen island was enough to make me salivate. Anyone who uses social media or eats hot pockets is Pavlov’s dog. And it is costly. It took ages for me to get back in the habit of reading books after years of short-form video content. It takes effort now to write or study Spanish for extended periods—I need constant visual and auditory stimulation. It took a serious last-straw come-to-Jesus moment with my disordered eating in order for me to make the switch to vegetarianism and finally source whole food ingredients and begin to cook for myself. It is taking mental effort to unshackle myself from the rigamorroll and not share every waking moment on my Instagram stories—a life I have already decided I don’t want. Because it doesn’t end with a thousand or a million followers. It doesn’t end with going viral. The pull to create more and more content as only begun at that point. One is constantly online sharing every waking moment of their day. The work, if you are one of the few who acknowledge that word, never stops. There are no more vacations where you can be in the moment without feeling the need to capitalize on it. There are no more days where you are content to be a slob. There are no more dinner parties with friends where you don’t feel compelled to take perfect pictures. There is no more presence. You may be Yelp-Elite, but how does it feel to be “elite”?

            When I wonder who we would be if we slowed down, turned off our phones, and quit the gravy train of side hustles, I look to my friend Rebekah. She is a working filmmaker who isn’t on social media (yes, it is possible). She is present. Her words are resonant. She observes and remembers. When you are with her, you have her full attention. She is so far off the beaten path that she struggles to maintain communication via a smartphone. Because, as she will tell you, life is better in-person. Most months, she is living in a small community in Colorado. Other times, she is in Texas—two places she holds so dear, she must split her time between them. Her one multitask. When I grow up, I want to be just like her. Bill-Murray-it out of the digital age and into the Andes. Smell every rose. Throw rocks into rivers like I’m a kid again—the only elementary school I think any of us should be living in. It’s why, in a weird circular fashion, I want more Instagram followers. I think that in order to move and live my LATAM dreams—in order to escape the rigamorroll—I must play into it for a while. And that just isn’t true. Look at Rebekah.

            I feel as if I’m bridging a gap between my past self and my future self, and the gentleman at the Korean restaurant and my small audience. I’m waving a flag saying enough is enough. Everyone should be vegetarian and boycott los EEUU, right? Maybe that’s just my path. However, I do think it goes without saying that there is something toxic going on here. Maybe I’ve floated around it, and maybe you’ve listened. Maybe not. I think life would be better if we were off our screens. We should pick up more books and shop local businesses. We should laugh with our friends rather than take pictures of the food. We should post less and go on trips because we like to travel, not because we get paid to.

            I do have to acknowledge what I believe to be the root of a small part of this. At the risk of being political, I have to. The social media side hustle epidemic can be traced to tech billionaires wanting to make more billions and companies not paying workers livable wages. It has to do with the absence of universal healthcare. We run to social media because the tech bros trained algorithms to attract us, and also because having a six-figure side hustle would help pay the increasing bills. It’s a path for a pizza delivery driver to become famous on TikTok and have a shot at paying for college. It’s a path for a single mom with little time and little assistance to have a shot at putting food on the table and sending her kids to college. What I can often see as toxic might only be someone’s last resort—or someone’s first hope. Perhaps if our society weren’t built the way it is, we wouldn’t feel the pressure or pull to be so online. We wouldn’t have to side hustle ourselves to death—or feel guilty—just to get by.

            Is there a future that looks different? Some politicians—Sarah McBride comes to mind—believe there is. Is there hope? I must again return to Rebekah. I asked her this weekend over a small home dinner if she believes in a destination. I, I confessed to her, struggle to. “The destination is love,” she said, “We are all headed towards a perfect and complete love.”